Catch and Miss
by niki-chan2
Summary: Memories and moments captured in time. A collection of drabbles and oneshots. Various characters and timelines, from both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
1. Not Like Them

Title: Catch and Miss

Author: Niki-chan

Summary: Memories and moments captured in time. A collection of drabbles and one-shots. Various characters and timelines, from both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Disclaimer: Not mine. His.

* * *

**Not Like Them**  
Inspired by _Normal Again

* * *

_

She wasn't like the others.

Not really. True, she was crazy. She wouldn't be _here_ if she wasn't. But not like them.

Not like Liam with his multiple personalities. (He sometimes called himself an Angel). Not like Drusilla with her ranting. (She claimed she could see the stars, even when they were inside). She was nothing like Willow with her addiction. (She needed it; needed to lose herself).

There were others. So many of them, locked in little white rooms. She hated white.

But she was nothing like them.

There was just a magical world inside her head. A world Buffy desperately wanted to be real.

* * *


	2. Dirty

**Dirty  
**Takes place during season six. Buffy/Spike.

I Disclaim... Nothing is mine

* * *

Buffy felt dirty.

She didn't love him. Barely even liked him. He was everything she hated. Evil and soulless.

But he loved her.

That almost made it worse. When they made love – _Fucked_ – he was hoping for something more. Something she could never give him, not even if she wanted to (and she didn't). She was using him.

And that made her feel dirty. Cheap, bad, _dirty_.

But it was better than feeling nothing.

* * *


	3. White Knight

**White Knight  
**Takes place at the end of _Home_. Wes/Lilah.  
Insert disclaimer here.

* * *

Lilah had never been one for sappy goodbyes.

She had never been one of those love-sick girls, head in the clouds, dreaming of her white knight and happily ever after.

She had seen things, _done_ things. She had always known her story would end like this (albeit she hadn't expected it to end so soon).

But somehow, as she stood in the records hall at the evil law firm that owned her soul for all eternity, she couldn't help but wish he _could_ save her.

Lilah smiled sadly at Wesley, her contract in one hand and a lighter in his other. He was her white knight. It was a shame she never realized it until she was dead.

* * *


	4. Three Little Words

**Three Little Words**  
Takes place during _Habeas Corpses_. Wes/Lilah.  
Nothing is mine.

* * *

"Wesley…"

He stared at her, and suddenly she couldn't form the words.

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to say it. For the first time in her life she really and truly _meant_ it.

However, as she looked in his eyes she realized it wouldn't matter. He would never believe her anyway. Not that she blamed him. She was evil, after all.

Besides, they were only words. Three little words, so insignificant. At the end of the day, they would amount to nothing.

"Connor's trapped inside," she said instead, pretending not to see the disappointment in his eyes.

* * *


	5. Let's Pretend

**Let's Pretend  
**During Season 6 of BtVS. Spike/Buffy.  
Disclaimer goes here.

* * *

He knew that it wasn't real.

Spike had always been a fool, but even he could see the truth in her vacant eyes. She was here. She was in his arms; in his bed. But she wasn't _here_.

But he also knew that this was as good as it would ever get. So every night he would pretend it didn't matter; pretend he didn't care.

And when she cried out her release, he would pretend it was his name on her lips, and not that of an Angel.

* * *


	6. Never the Same

**Never the Same**  
Mid BtVS season 7 and AtS season 4. B/A.  
Joss is god.

* * *

It was never the same. No matter how hard they tried, no matter who they were with, it could never compare.

They had moved on, they had loved. But they were never _in love_. In hindsight one could see that it was impossible. Her heart had followed him the day he left, and his heart, albeit unbeating, had remained behind with her.

But they tried. And they almost succeeded.

Spike had a soul, and Cordelia's hair was blonde.

But it was never the same.

* * *


	7. Moments

**Moments  
**Takes place during Angel Season 2. Lindsey/Darla  
All hail Joss.

Dedicated to Imzadi

* * *

There were moments when Lindsey thought he loved her. 

He thought he loved her when she stood in his office, stroking that damned plastic hand. (_You don't feel anything? Not in my hand_). He thought he loved her when he kissed her, soft at first, then more passionate as he pushed her up against the table. She bit his neck, and he didn't care. (_That's how vampires get what they want_). He thought he loved her when he learned she was dying. When he turned to Angel, the man he despised more than anything, in order to save her. (_I don't want her to die any more than you do_).

Yes, in those moments he believed he was in love with Darla.

And then there were other moments.

When she was sired again, and threw him across his office. When she slaughtered his colleagues in front of him, then used him to get to Wolfram and Hart. When she fucked Angel, and then left for good.

In these moments Lindsey didn't think he loved her. In these moments he _knew_.

* * *


	8. Pangs

**Pangs**  
Takes place during The Girl In Question. B/A, B/Immortal implied  
Joss Whedon owns everything.

* * *

Buffy knew he was there.

She didn't need to hear above the music (the bass pounded so loudly it was as if her veins were pumping along with it). She didn't need to see past the sweaty masses of bodies writhing to the beat (they all pressed together, as if they were a single mound of flesh). The minute he walked into the crowded club she could just _feel_ him.

She considered leaving Morty on the dance floor (he hated that name, but Buffy was not about to go around calling her boyfriend The Immortal); considered turning around that instant and rushing into _his_ arms.

But she knew that was ridiculous. After all, she wasn't cookies yet. So instead she just danced, trying to ignore the unrelenting pang within her soul.

* * *


	9. Fair

**Fair**  
Season 3 of BtVS, sometime after Lovers Walk.  
Joss owns them.

* * *

Sometimes Cordelia can still feel it.

That jagged, rusty pipe protruding from her gut (it slid right through her, like a knife through butter). She can still remember the agonizing pain when the paramedics lifted her body from the invading object (she also remembers this hurt more than the initial injury, and wonders how on earth that could be considered fair).

She remembers seeing him in _her_ arms, his lips on hers. She doesn't want to, but the memory is permanently etched into her mind (like that tattoo she'd always tried to hide from her mother).

She remembers the flowers he brought to her hospital room (they were beautiful, but since then she's grown to hate all things floral), and she remembers telling him to go. In that moment she no longer wondered or questioned her feelings because in that moment she _knew_. She was in love with Xander Harris. And somehow watching him leave hurt more than finding him with _her _in the first place.

Again she finds herself wondering how this is far (and realizes that life never really is).

* * *


	10. Eye Openers

**Eye Openers**  
Sometime after Chosen.  
Not mine.

* * *

Sometimes Xander would forget it was gone. When he woke some days (or afternoons, or evenings, as his sleeping patterns hadn't been regular in quite some time) he would yawn and stretch and consider hitting snooze one more time before opening his eyes. And then he would realize he had used the plural again.

It wasn't that he missed it. Not really. He'd gotten used to having just the one. He just hated that feeling he would get when it would suddenly dawn on him that it was gone. Because that meant _she_ was gone.

Sometimes Xander would forget that too.

* * *


	11. Menage a Trois

**Ménage à Trois**  
Sometime after _New Moon Rising_.  
Nothing is mine.

* * *

Willow knew she'd made the right choice. It wasn't necessarily the safest or most conventional, but in her heart she knew it was _right_. 

She loved Tara (saying it still made her giggle sometimes). Tara was everything she wanted, everything she could ever want. Tara was _home_, and Willow knew there truly was no place like it (she resisted the urge to click her heels).

But there were still some nights, when the moon was full (only when the moon was full), when Willow would allow her mind to wander. On these nights she would wonder where he was, wonder if he was happy. (She also wondered if he still played his guitar, because deep down she was still his groupie). And after she was finished wondering she would close her eyes and wrap her arms around the woman sleeping next to her.

Willow didn't regret her choice. She really and truly loved Tara (no giggling this time). But on those certain nights… she knew she still loved him too.

* * *


	12. The Grass is Always Greener

**The Grass is Always Greener**  
Angel Season 5, Fred and Wes are together.  
Not mine.

* * *

Wesley had always loved Fred. Even (or especially) when he was with Lilah (he always called it "with Lilah" because he never knew _what_ to call it, and when he thought about it he'd never really cared to know anyway). 

Now he was with Fred (and this time he used "with" for simplicity's sake, because he knew _exactly_ where they stood and how they felt for one another).

So when the words came out of his mouth he didn't really know what to think (he was, however, certain some psychologist would have a field day trying to analyze his distorted mind).

"Take the glasses off."

Wesley always wanted what he didn't have.

* * *


	13. Hero

**Hero**  
Angel Season 1, before _Hero_ sometime.  
I wish they were mine.

* * *

Doyle had no preconceived notions of being a good man. He would never be a hero.

He was a bad man, a worse husband, and a lousy drunk. Sure, he helped the occasional "helpless", but it wasn't as though he had a choice. The mind-numbing, skull-splitting visions were proof of that. Sometimes Doyle wondered if he would be able to just ignore the visions if not for the excruciating pain (and shamefully he knew he probably would).

No, Doyle certainly had no illusions of grandeur, nor would anyone ever accuse him of being a narcissist. He wasn't noble; he wasn't a hero.

But when he saw Cordy's smile… he certainly wanted to be.

* * *


	14. Perfect Happiness

**Perfect Happiness**  
Angel Season 5, during _Power Play_.  
Joss owns them

* * *

Nina knew it was ridiculous, but when she slept with Angel for the first time a part of her was a little hurt when he woke with his soul intact (she said it was ridiculous, because who in their right mind would be disappointed that their boyfriend didn't turn into a soulless, murderous, blood-sucking fiend?). 

She tried to tell herself it wasn't that he hadn't been perfectly happy (because Nina wasn't exactly new at this, and the word "perfect" had been thrown around more than once in the past). She tried to convince herself the curse no longer had that particular clause. She tried reasoning that Angel had simply learned to control it.

She was never successful in these endeavors, however, because Nina wasn't a fool. Angel didn't lose his soul because he wasn't perfectly happy. And he wasn't perfectly happy because Nina was Nina, not _her_.

To Nina it seemed rather unfair that the very fact that this woman made him truly, completely, _perfectly_ happy was the very reason they couldn't be together. It was tragically ironic.

Of course, this all worked out rather nicely for Nina, so she decided it wasn't quite so sad after all.

* * *


	15. Cookie Dough

**Cookie Dough**  
BtVS Season 7, during _Chosen_.  
Still not mine.

* * *

He wasn't _entirely_ sure what she was talking about. 

Something about cookies and baking, and he had never really been a fan of metaphors (plus his mind was still reeling from the Spike revelation). She was rambling, and God, did he miss her ramblings, but he was fairly certain he caught the gist of it (despite the poorly chosen analogy).

And he would wait. As long as it would take. Like he said, he wasn't getting any older.

And when he walked away he tried to be hopeful; tried to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his mind.

_You're not…__But she is_. (That voice was a persistent fucker).

* * *


End file.
